Digital Tempest’s Neighborhood

Well, it's been a long time coming, but the time has come.

I've pretty much given up on Vox. It makes me sad, but I don't believe I shall be blogging here anymore.

I'm not deleting my account. I want to keep the archive, as I've been here an awful long time. Hopefully eventually I'll be able to figure out a way to save it all somewhere. Or import it to wordpress, although i'm not sure that's gonna happen since they're different companies.

Please update your links and visit me to read my continuing saga at my new blog. I would greatly appreciate it! I will miss the community here, but I've been missing that for a while now. It just isn't the same as it was when I started. And that makes me sad.

I will try to continue to visit sometimes and comment.

Don't be a stranger!

srsly, vox? i'm getting spam as direct messages now?!

marcelin

Blog|Profile|May 8, 2009 8:45 PM
From:Miss Jordin Eddison

From:Miss Jordin Eddison
Abidjan,Cote d'ivoire

Dear One,
          
l am introducing myself,l am Miss Jordin Eddison,the only Daughter of late Chief and Mrs. Eddison,I wish to request for your assistance in a financial transaction,l got your contact through this site faces and I want to invest in Manufacturing and real estate management in your country.   I have Fifteen million Five hundred thousand united states dollars.USD($15,500,000) to invest in your country, and I will require your assistance in investing this funds in a profitable venture in your country.l will compensate you with 20% for your efforts in assisting me.
Now permit me to ask these few questions: - 

1. Can I completely trust you?

2. Promise not to sit on my money when reaches your country?

Consider this and get back to me immediately through this my private box for further explanation and conversation on how we will proceed.
Awaiting your immediate response.  Pls reply me at :- jordineddison73@yahoo.fr

Thanks and God bless. 

Best Regards

Jordin.

fuck this.

It always seems like I should have more to write about. Is my life that uninteresting?

Yeah, it really is.

The only thing I’ve done this week is… oh yeah, nothing. I’ve been feeling ridiculously ill with this sinus infection. Today is the first day I feel like a human being in a week. I spent the entirety of last weekend on the couch in my pajamas. I made it through the whole day at work on Monday, but I don’t really remember it.

I left early to go see the doc on Tuesday. Got lots of drugs to take. Antihistamines, antibiotics, nasal spray, the whole nine yards. Then I didn’t sleep Tuesday night. I got a couple hours, maybe, because I remember having really weird fever dreams, but for me that’s as good as nothing. I am sure I’ve mentioned before, but I do not handle lack of sleep well. At. All.

I was feeling terrible yesterday, on top of the no sleep (or perhaps aided by it), so Lith sent me home early. I camped out on the couch and force myself to stay away til eight, and then went to bed.

I finally feel human again today. It’s wonderful, let me tell you. Not only that, but it’s gorgeous outside today. I’m still congested as all hell, but I feel so much better. I can’t even rightly describe it, to be honest.
 
Thank god, too. I’ve got shit to do this weekend! And it’s supposed to be absofuckinglutely gorgeous out!

i have a sinus infection.

it sucks.

I’m a fairly voracious reader (though I’ve discovered not nearly as voracious as some people—DAMN, y’all), and I enjoy reading series; however, there are few that I really try to keep up with these days. I've mostly fallen off with all but a few of them, and then there's that one that I've actually stopped reading. The Dresden Files is one of them that I do keep up with. I’ve been waiting for Turn Coat to be released for at least three months, if not longer. I’ve been counting down to it. I bought it the day it was released.

So you’d think, after pointing all of this out, that I’d be disappointed in the book once I sat down to read it. Well, you’re wrong. I loved every single page of it.

If you’re familiar with the series, you know how it goes: shit goes wrong, Harry Dresden gets involved, investigates the weirdness, figures shit out, get the ever-loving fuck beat out of him at least once, if not more than, calls on a few allies, saves the day but juuuuust barely.

I won’t pretend that the series isn’t at least somewhat formulaic at this point. We’re eleven books into a projected 20 or so (insert me jumping up and down squeeing and clapping *here*), but at this point, for me at least, there's a certain comfort to the formula. Reading a new Dresden book for me is like catching up with an old friend, who I don't get to see nearly enough of. They're comfortable, the characters are all familiar and well-loved, and the settings are often familiar. I have a clear picture, for example, of Harry's little apartment in my head. I know where Mister hangs out, I know where Mouse sleeps. I always feel bad that Harry can't even take a hot damned shower because of being a wizard.

Not only is it familiar, but Butcher doesn't pretend that there isn't a certain routine to these cases. I don't know how far ahead he's got this thing planned, but it looks to me that he's got more than just the next several hundred pages in mind. Part of the major problem that Harry is dealing with in this book is something that's been building over the course of the last several. I love that-- that sense that there's more going on than just what is presented to the reader in each book. I love that there is more to this story than just what meets the eye. I keep thinking of Murder, She Wrote. Everywhere poor Jessica Fletcher went, people died, and she never thought that was weird? Harry flat out says at one point that weird shit has been going down around Chicago and the world at large over the last several years, and he wants to know what is behind it.

Jim Butcher ably handles his cast of characters. People tend to feel fleshed out at this point, including Harry himself. He's not static; if you look back over the series thus far, you can chart an actual character arc for him, unlike certain other main characters who shall remain nameless but only seem to gain more invincibility and a more voracious and weird sexual appetite as her "adventures" continue.

I'm not going to go into much detail regarding the plot here, because I want you to read these books, and I want you to start at Storm Front, and when you've torn through them all, I want you to thank me profusely. I don't even want to talk too much about some of the more recent character additions, for fear of giving something from a previous books that's awesome away (and if you ask me, it's all pretty fucking awesome). So, the basics are thus: Morgan (no, I'm not going to explain to you who this is) shows up at Harry's door asking for help. Harry is the last person ANYONE would ever expect Morgan to go to, and being Harry, lets the poor half-dead guy in. Turns out, Morgan stands accused of killing one of the Senior members of the White Council of Wizards. Harry knows that Morgan is innocent, and sets out to find out who really did the deed. Sounds pretty simple, but there's a whole helluva lot more to it than that. And I'm not going to give any of it away; sorry.

If you aren't at least somewhat familiar with the series, I do not recommend starting with this latest book. Yeah, there's some explanation for the uninitiated scattered throughout, but for the most part, Butcher dives right in. This is a book for the regular readers. And, shit, after eleven books, I'm glad he doesn't spell everything out anymore--it would drive me insane.

I won't deny that there are flaws in this series. But they've all been fun to read so far, and I really heart Harry at this point. So, get to reading already.

(cross-posted here.)

Today I feel like the world is all possibility and light.

Today is one of those days where I know exactly who I am and I know what I’ve got to do, both for myself and for my future contentedness, and the work I have to do is neither daunting nor even remotely overwhelming. It’s just what I have to do.

I love days like today. The past few months have been full of days where all I am is self-doubt and worry. What if the path I’ve chosen isn’t the right one? What if I screw things up? What if I never get my blood sugars down where they’re supposed to be?

None of those questions bother me today. Today, if I’ve chosen wrong, then when I come to realize that I’ll take a new direction. If I screw things up, then I’ll fix them and keep moving. There’s no question that I won’t get my sugars down to damn near perfect.

Today is a good place to be. I should really make sure I get enough sleep more often.

Good morning, folks!

Just thought I'd flog the other blog again, as I just posted my very first recap ever!

"You haven't seen my drawer of inappropriate starches?"

Knit One, Kill Two is a really cute little mystery novel by Maggie Sefton. It’s the first in a series centering on Kelly Flynn and the ladies of House of Lambspun in Ft Collins, CO. And yes, it’s a knitting themed series. Shut up, I like to knit. I may not be any good at it (yet!), but I like it. The… gimmicky part of the series is that each novel comes with a knitting pattern and a recipe in the back. The first one has a scarf pattern and a shell pattern. And a recipe for cinnamon rolls that I absolutely cannot wait to try. Yeah, I went for the gimmick, but the book turned out to be worth it.

Kelly comes back to her hometown at the outset of the novel for her aunt’s funeral. Aunt Helen was her favorite aunt, more like a mother, so Kelly is devastated. She’s taken a short leave from her job as a corporate accountant in DC to take care of her aunt’s estate. Aunt Helen’s old farmhouse has been turned into a yarn shop by one of her friends, and Kelly is drawn into a circle of women at the store. Kelly quickly realizes just how much she loved Colorado, and is torn between her corporate job and trying to make things work while staying in CO.

But the story really centers on the murder of her Aunt Helen. Kelly is a rather meticulous, detail oriented woman, so the story that she is told by the police doesn’t add up for her (see what I did there? It’s a pun! Kinda.).  The official story is that a vagrant broke into the house and Helen’s murder was a botched robbery. The vagrant (who’s never given a name, or really features at all) was seen fleeing across the golf course that is behind Helen’s cottage. It’s all neat and tidy, and wrong of course.

Kelly, along with her new friends at House of Lambspun, starts prying into the murder herself. Of course, I’m not going to spoil whodunit, but she does figure it out in the end. There’s just enough drama and secrets from the past uncovered to keep me occupied and enjoying the book. It’s not the most complex or high-minded mystery ever, but it is an enjoyable read. If you’re looking for a fluffy mystery like I have been lately, and don’t mind a bit of kitsch and a bunch of silly women sitting around tables knitting, you could do worse than this book. (I enjoyed it enough that I’ve since started the second and have the third and fourth novels waiting for me as well.)

(really? I've only finished two books in the last month? i lose. must redouble my efforts. must do AlabamaPink proud.)

I like most of my reading to be at least a little bit fantastic. What can I say; I am a creature of habit. This has become even more prevalent over the past year and a half or so. I don’t really want to do much heavy reading—I read to escape even more so now than I ever did before. I seem to have a difficult time with something required of more in depth fiction. Maybe my attention span is gone, or something. Anyway, it seems like there’s a much greater wealth of books with that touch of fantasy to them than there used to be. So I have happily been indulging this whim of mine when it comes to book purchases.

I found one a few weeks ago that I ended up really loving. The book is Defending Angels, by Mary Stanton. It is the first in a new series. The protagonist is Bree Beaufort, who has just inherited her uncle’s law practice in Savannah. She’s moved into her family’s townhouse and starts the novel out searching for temporary digs while her uncle’s office is renovated.

Her uncle died in a very odd fire in his office.  I am not sure this is something I really need to be pointing out here, because it isn’t all that important to the story itself, but when a bit more is revealed about the circumstances of the fire, it is pretty interesting. At least, I thought so.

Bree finds an office with a fabulously affordable rent in a great neighborhood pretty quickly. The only catch? It’s in the  middle of Savannah’s only all murderers cemetery. Spooky setting. Bree’s new landlady is rather… eccentric. As are the other new people that come into Bree’s life as she starts this new venture. Now, Savannah has a reputation for being incredibly haunted and home to fabulously eccentric folks, but these characters are perhaps a bit far out even for that town.

However, there’s good reason for that.

Bree gets an office-warming present from a former law professor whom she always liked (not like that, silly). He was one of those awesome professors that scares slackers silly, but the good students absolutely adore. You may have had one of those teachers at some point, I know I have. Included in the package is a brand new phone, which is ringing as she opens the package.
 
The phone call is from a dead man. This is where things get interesting. I won’t go into too much detail here, as I don’t want to give away too much. Figuring out what’s going on along with Bree (although the reader does see things clearly far before she does) is part of the fun of the book.

Bree has to work to solve the murder of the man who called her phone, and clear him of what he’s been charged with. Charged with by whom? Well, that’s another part of the fun of this little book.

Now that I’m thinking about it, there actually is quite a bit that goes on in this book. There would be an awful lot for me to explain were I to try to go into it. So I won’t, I’ll just say: I loved it, and I can’t wait for the second book to be released. It’s a fluffy murder mystery, which is exactly what I’m after of late, and a good light read.

Well, folks, I’ve gone and started a second blog. Ostensibly, the story goes a little something like this: last week, Dollhouse finally started to suck less. OK, so it doesn’t really suck that bad, but it hasn’t been great as of yet. Joss promised and promised that things would start picking up around ep6, and he told us true.

So a few of us were chatting back and forth over on AvB’s facebook wall about the show, and someone suggested starting weekly recaps somewhere so we’d have an easier time of it doing the discussing. No one else was able to do it, so I thought to myself, “Self, this sounds like a fun new writing challenge. You’ve never done recaps before. You should do it!”

And thus my second blog was born. Its initial purpose is to post recaps of Dollhouse episodes every Friday night/Saturday morning, so we can discuss things and pick it apart, and at least in the case of myself and AvB, drool over Helo Agent Ballard.

It is over on WordPress, because, well, it’s easier to comment there than it is here. I love the privacy options and whatnot of Vox, and I love my neighborhood, but I hate that people who aren’t Vox members can’t comment without signing up for an account. If you’re not going to blog, it just feels kinda pointless. And I know of at least one person who has wanted to comment and hasn’t been able to get Vox to sign them up, despite multiple tries (he might just be doing it wrong, though. Hee!).

So I may be defecting.
 
Ok, not entirely. I haven’t decided for sure what I’m going to do, but I have been thinking about dividing up my blogging a bit, between the two, so that the other one isn’t just Dollhouse recaps. And I don’t know that I want my Vox to turn into something that is just an online journal—it will get way too navel-gazey for my tastes. I’ll annoy even myself with that.
 
I haven’t made a decision yet. But for now, if you’d like to talk some Dollhouse at weekends, feel free to come join us over at lizzie borden took her axe. (Link also will be in my sidebar there, as soon as I get that updated.) Bring your friends; we don’t bite. I mean, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

(And of course, I’ll be flogging the hell out of posts when they’re up. In fact, if nothing else, I’ll link to posts here from there, and vice versa, all the time!)